Concepts in the Paradox

I need to be to Bart by 6:30am to catch my train to get a ride in Oakland to attend Nerdapalooza ‘06. It’s going to be like a vacation after my trip to Defcon, which was also like a vacation. Yes, I still need to post those photos and do a run down, but for some strange reason I am hyper and sugar buzzed. Maybe it was something in the curry I had at Naan ‘n Curry for dinner, or I’m excited for yet more geekout time.

I plan to:
* Drink (Jason is driving)
* Swim (not while drunk)
* Geekout
* Eat bbq-like objects

Now if I could only sleep. I guess I will just sit here and bounce on my yoga ball in front of the computer until I get tired.

Sometimes the battles come to me, some times I come to the battles.

The first is the case of the battle coming to me is the new jet-sounding air exhaust system that the Parc 55 Renaissance Hotel installed just outside my apartment’s window a couple weeks ago. It is huge, loud, and runs full blast because of the latest heat wave to hit California. I’m not the only one who has to be annoyed by these buzzing fans, since the entire south side of the building faces them and I can hear it from the street level too.

The first stage of this battle is to look up noise ordinances, contact the San Francisco Tenants Union, and send the Parc 55 a letter. If that fails, I may have to resort to getting a lawyer as stage 2.

The second is the case of me coming to the battle is the GoGeary movement to implement a BRT system along the Geary corridor. While this is a good idea, it isn’t the best idea. Do we need more diesel powered vehicles on the road? They are noisy, uncomfortable to ride, and have short useful life times. Why they don’t expand the light rail to Geary is beyond me. Well, actually, it isn’t. Local business are meddling in the deployment of light rail, fearing that it will cost them business due to parking spots being lost.

I don’t know about you, but if I can take a non-crush capacity vehicle to your business, I’ll likely spend money. Why a another vehicle in Muni’s fleet? Why not the devil we know, the Breda cars?

I’ve been doing some research, of which I’ve made some very interesting finds on both San Francisco’s internal workings as well as just how a BRT will not help the dire situation the 38-Geary line is in. I’m going to prepare a 2-minute statement and let Muni and the GoGeary folks know during the project meeting on July 29th.

Heck, I don’t even take the Geary line anymore. I moved because it was just so bad — the downtown area transit is so much better. And guess what, it is mostly electric rail!

We have to set the president.

At 6:30, I walked over to the Flood Building around the corner to sit in on a Market Street Railway meeting. I wanted to see what kind of people attended, how the meetings were conducted, and find out the who’s who.

As with any meeting, minutes were called, and the budget was discussed. Various tidbits were discussed, the meat of the gathering being about the new museum and store opening near the Ferry Building. It was your standard meeting stuff, finding out what they can sell, profit margins on their calendar, and the like.

A few MSR members brought some old photos they had dug out of their closets, mainly photos of old rail cars in Hayes Valley, as well as they stories attached to them.

“The 21 line, seen here at 700 Hayes St on it’s last day of service, had to have it’s rail replaced on the last day of service. Muni had little choice, other street cars needed to cross that line, so the 21 got to run over some freshly laid track on it’s last day of service. All these buildings you see here in the background are still there to this day. Circa 1941.”

One of the local landmarks presidents said a few words by proxy for a very old gentleman who wanted to preserve the old LRV shelters. There are about 6 in San Francisco still, the two I can remember are the Fort Mason one, and the other is the Dolores Park shelter. When taking the J-Church through Dolores Park, note the old street car passenger shelter as you come out of the right away into the park. Back behind that is an old Muni LRV shelter, part of the original line, fenced over and covered in litter and graffiti. There is an effort to restore that brewing, so if anyone wants to help clean that up, I’m sure Dolores Park would look even more beautiful after.

I wouldn’t say an MSR meeting is the most exciting thing in the world, though I may show up to the September meeting. If you like trains, and you like to see all the people in their 50’s discuss train politics, that’s the place to be.

Also, Muni is all powerful. Bow to Muni. Nothing happens without Muni’s grace.

This weekend is CodeCon, which features various programming projects and ideas from the employed and unemployed programmers in the Bay Area. Take a look at the program to see if there is anything interesting you’d like to see. I’ve found that CodeCon projects often bear fruit, or give a good indication of where software in the industry is heading.

For example, long before Flickr was hot for photo uploading, there were projects at Codecon showing how to hack Flickr long before Yahoo! stepped in as owner. SCM projects, P2P, and audio hackery are also projects one would expect to find there.

So grab $85, plus some money for food and booze, and everyone for a 3 day coding geekout — and of course all the enjoyment that San Francisco has to offer.

Also, there will be llama-tipping.